How to Install a Gusset to Enlarge a Sleeve
ID: 165412
Description: If your shirt, dress, or other garment is too t...
Steps:
- Use tailor's chalk to mark 4 inches from the seam joining the sleeve to the bodice on the center sleeve seam.
- Use tailor's chalk to mark 4 inches from the seam joining the sleeve to the bodice on the bodice seam.
- Use a seam ripper to remove the center sleeve and bodice seams up to the chalk marks.
- Be sure to avoid splitting the horizontal seam joining the sleeve itself to the bodice.
- Turn your garment inside out so the seams are facing towards you.
- Create a pattern by drawing a diamond that is 4 inches by 3 inches on a piece of paper.
- Add an additional half inch to each side for seam allowance.
- Cut out your pattern using scissors.
- On a piece of similarly-colored fabric, pin your pattern using sewing pins to hold it still on the fabric.
- Using fabric scissors, cut out a diamond-shaped piece of fabric following the pattern you created. This is your gusset.
- Line up your gusset against the hole in your garment.
- The longer sides of the diamond should be pointing towards the cuff of the sleeve and the bodice.
- Pin your gusset to the garment along the edges of the hole you created earlier.
- You should pin them together with the edges of the gusset and hole overlapping by about half an inch for seam allowance.
- Using a sewing machine or needle and thread, take a quarter-inch stich on one edge of the diamond with a straight stitch.
- Be sure to remove the pins ahead of your stitch as you move down the edge to avoid damage to your sewing machine.
- Repeat this step for each of the remaining edges of the diamond.
- Use sewing scissors to trim excess fabric along the edges past your stitch.
- Use a zig-zag stitch to seal the rough edges of the diamond using a sewing machine or needle and thread.
- Turn your garment inside out again, so the seams are on the inside of the garment.
- Inspect the gusset to make sure there are no gaps in your seam.
